Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Trees That Please Nursery is located south of the Albuquerque in Los Lunas, New Mexico. We propagate many native cactus species that do well in our area. We propagate the following:

Tree Cholla

Desert Christmas Cholla

Pencil Cholla

Club Cholla

Engelmann Prickly Pear

Black-Spined Prickly Pear

Spineless Prickly Pear

Sotol

Red Flowering Yucca

Yellow Flowering Yucca

Soaptree Yucca

New Mexico Agave

Lecheguilla Agave

This weeks featured cacti is the Desert Christmas Cholla. The Desert Christmas Cholla (Cylindropuntia leptocaulis) produces small fruits which turn red or red-orange during winter, typically in December. To some these colored fruits resemble small Christmas ornaments.

The Desert Christmas Cholla, a New Mexico Native, has slender stems and grows to about 2’ to 3’ tall and wide. This cholla is best grown in full sun on well-drained soils with only occasional watering. It produces cream colored flowers and is Hardy to USDA zone 6.

If you are considering something new for your low water – low maintenance landscape then visit Trees That Please Nursery. We have other plants also if a cactus does not fit your plan.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

There are some people in the
arid Albuquerque market and other cities of the Southwest that
still prefer to have green lawns that you can walk barefoot
on. Historically the standard practice for keeping grass green
was to use high analysis fertilizers. Products with names like Miracle
Grow, SoilTex, urea, etc., which were dumped on landscapes
like crazy and have been the tradition all across the country when it came to
growing turf and trees. This article will describe the problem with
using high analysis fertilizers, how they damage the soil ecology and I'll
describe how Soil Secrets has a better idea that results in the gradual
improvement in the soil health while also reducing the amount of water needed
to keep our urban landscapes green.

While fertilizers do what
they claim, which is provide Nitrogen, Phosphorous Potassium and maybe a half a
dozen other elements, and will make your lawn green as promised, they do
so at a cost to the health of the soil. This results in a multitude
of other problems which I'll address here. First is the issue of
water. The poorer condition your soils bio-geo-chemical process
(Soil Ecology) are in, the poorer the soil structure and the poorer
the root system of the plant. Thus, resulting in the plant, the crop,
the turf, the trees and shrubs needing extra water. This is true for
agriculture and it’s true for urban horticulture. The first two pictures I've attached show a typical
situation in Albuquerque where the home owner is trying to compensate
for soil that is not healthy by providing the landscape with extra water, yet
still we can see a dead/dying spot in the photo.

Notice the dead spot in the background. This is caused by
disease pressure and the roots rotting caused by poor drainage, anaerobic
conditions (no air) and poor soil structure.

What's happening is that the turf is
declining regardless of fertilizer and water being applied? While Soil
Ecology is complex, we can accurately determine that the grass roots on this
site are shallow and vulnerable to moisture availability. Why?
Because the site has poor soil structure resulting in anaerobic soils (no
oxygen), resulting in poor drainage and poor root depth since roots can only
live where there's plentiful oxygen. The issue is poor soil structure
caused by a system of management that does not encourage, prime, or support the
process of soil ecology. In other words, no high analysis fertilizer
product has every built a healthier soil and since plants must have a healthy
soil in order to grow a healthy immune system and a strong structure,
we can accurately say that fertilizers can't grow a healthy
plant. So back to the attached pictures, where the homeowner is
watering like crazy, trying to save the turf, we also begin to see
turf disease issues. Like humans, a healthy plant has a capable immune
system while an unhealthy plant is vulnerable to disease! The image
below, taken just a few weeks after the photo above, shows the turf recovering
and the brown spot disappearing.

This site had been treated with TerraPro,
which fortified the soil with Humic Molecules (erroneously called Humic Acids)
that are powerful "bio-organic matrixes" essential
for a healthy and productive soil. TerraPro is a novel material of the
industry that cannot be duplicated with other products on the market and was
developed from information obtained from molecular research performed at
both Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory, which
provided molecular information as deliverables to Soil Secrets under a Commercial
Proprietary Information Contract! On a molecular atomic scale they
are bio-identical to what is found in Nature's best soil environment and they
contain the proper supramolecular (quantum physics)
characteristics. In the Journal of Chemical Education, research
published by two Bio Chemical Engineers from
the University of Arizonahave stated that these carbon rich
bio-organic matrixes that we generically call Humic Acids, are essential for a
healthy and productive soil. So in the case of the images provided in
this paper we simply fortified the soil with that chemistry of Nature, plus we
switch the source of nitrogen from using a high analysis type
fertilizer to using a protein based product calledProtein Crumblies,
also a novel product of Soil Secrets. Why
protein? Because Soil Ecology depends on the life and death cycling
of animals in the soil, including the smallest creature the bacteria up to
larger animals such as earthworms, all of which bodies contain protein.
As that protein decays, the nitrogen that's part of the molecular structure of
the protein slowly becomes available for other soil microbes to graze on, with
some of the nitrogen becoming available for the vegetation. This process
is called "the soil food web", also essential for a healthy
and sustainable soil ecology. I've been writing and talking
about the soil food web since 1974, when I first wrote a paper on that topic
for a college class. Essentially what Soil Secrets is accomplishing
on this site is a process of "bio mimicry" where we are adding to
this soil what is needed to prime it back into a functional productive
soil. It demonstrates that we can grow an attractive turf,
use less water, have less disease pressure and be more responsible with our
environment when we use Soil Secrets Bio-Mimicry processes versus using
fertilizer and watering like crazy. Need more convincing? Here's an unsolicited email from Craig
Thames, Midland Texas Independent Schools, Grounds Forman.

The use of TerraPro and Protein
Crumblies dates back to the late 80's at my Trees That Please
Nursery in Los Lunas, New Mexico. The names have changed
and the products were crude in comparison to what we have today, but I
developed them for the production of our trees, shrubs and other plants, where
I was attempting to mimic Nature for the objective of being on the journey to
better soil health. Today Trees That Please production still uses
TerraPro and Protein Crumblies, in production of our plant materials and
we retail them to our clients. They are also available to
other nurseries/garden centers and they are used Nation wide in
agriculture, mine reclamation, State Highway re-vegetation, city
parks and sports fields. Some of the largest farms in
the United States are now using TerraPro and other products of Soil
Secrets, which has evolved into a national company.
It
Works!

Here's another site in Albuquerque,
where the soil health was compromised by the use of high analysis
fertilizers.

The image below was taken a few weeks
after the above, with the bottom image benefiting from TerraPro and Protein
Crumblies treatment.

Don't forget that on May 31st, we shall
be opening our arboretum collection to the public for our annual Spring Fling
in the Trees. It's free and its open to the public. Mark your
calendar and if you wish to attend, contact us for directions and more
details.